1. Field of the Invention
The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to a power supply device, and more particularly, to a method for performing battery cell control with aid of virtual battery mechanism and a related apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional battery cell control chips are designed to control a designated number of battery cells. For example, a first battery cell control chip of the conventional battery cell control chips may be applied to control three to six battery cells. In another example, a second battery cell control chip of the conventional battery cell control chips may be applied to control five to eight battery cells.
As the designated quantity (i.e. the designated number of battery cells) is unchangeable in a chip product, certain problems may occur. More specifically, each of the first and second battery cell control chips may provide a unique and excellent function. In the design of a conventional power supply device (e.g. a redundant power supply), once output specifications of a battery module are determined, a number of battery cells of the battery module is determined. Hence, when one of the first and second battery cell control chips is excluded from the conventional power supply device because of the unsupported number of battery cells, the corresponding unique and excellent function cannot be introduced into the conventional power supply device.
For example, the second battery cell control chip may include an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) to provide a parameter updating function, while the first battery cell control chip does not provide the parameter updating function. When the power supply manufacturer determines the number of battery cells to be four (or an integer less than four) and tries to design a power supply device with the parameter updating function, the power supply manufacturer may find out that neither one of the first and second battery cell control chips is applicable. After taking various factors (e.g. material and labor costs, and the rest of the conventional battery cell control chips) into consideration, the power supply manufacturer may have no choice but to give up implementing the parameter updating function, resulting in obstruction to industrial development. Thus, a novel method is needed to improve the use of the conventional battery cell control chips without introducing undesirable side effects.